GNU/Linux is a free and open source software operating system for computers. The operating system is a collection of the basic instructions that tell the electronic parts of the computer what to do and how to work. Free, Libre and open source software (FLOSS) means that everyone has the freedom to use it, see how it works, and change it.

GNU/Linux is a collaborative effort between the GNU project, formed in 1983 to develop the GNU operating system and the development team of Linux, a kernel. Initially Linux was intended to develop into an operating system of its own, but these plans were shelved somewhere along the way.

Linux is also used without GNU in embedded systems, mobile phones and appliances, often with BusyBox or other such embedded tools.

Thank you for the input! We have 139 subscribers now in /r/postmarketOS, when we reach 350, it should be possible to do that according to the text at the bottom:

Don't see your community listed? Find or create a subreddit for it, and add it to the wiki when it has over 350 subscribers, and we'll add it to the sidebar.

And for distrowatch: It would be nice if they wrote something about postmarketOS, but it looks like there are a few developers around at least, who are actually trying to port their devices now. So I'll rather focus on helping them right now than writing to a site where I'm not even sure if they are interested in the project. But I don't mind if someone here wants to reach out to them/other GNU/Linux relevant sites, that might write something about pmOS. Just make sure, that they know, that it is in a very early state.

It's a bit irritating to me when a post about some software doesn't explain what the software does, and even worse when the linked article doesn't either.

Taken from other pages on that site:

Introduction post to postmarketOS, a touch-optimized, pre-configured Alpine Linux with own packages, that can be installed on smartphones. (Not usable for most people yet!)

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Androids architecture is based on forking (one might as well say copy-pasting) the entire code-base for each and every device and Android version. And then working on that independent, basically instantly incompatible version. Especially adding device-specific drivers plays an important role.

This workflow makes it next to impossible to patch all Android devices with security updates in time or at all (Stagefright vulnerabilities for example rendered one billion devices vulnerable). And even if the vendor provides updates, it will only be for a limited time and then you must buy a new device to get security updates or the latest Android version. How convenient!

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I'm working on an Alpine Linux based distribution called postmarketOS where each phone will have only one unique package — all other packages are shared among all devices.

TL;DR: it seems that postmarketOS is a universal Android replacement based around a single Hardware Abstraction Layer ("phone driver") to adapt it to different phones. Which is awesome, by the way.

As I see it, project treble will improve the update process, but not completely resolve the endless forking. You will still have the "vendor implementation", which is different for every device. It will contain at least the kernel and drivers (kernel/userspace), for which you, as a user, depend on the manufacturer to keep it updated, and which will probably not be mainlined. This means, that after two years or so, when the support runs out, you will still have a device, that does not get updates anymore. Only for a smaller component of the operating system.

Also keep in mind, that this will work for newer Android O phones only. We already have more than a billion phones (the number could be much higher, I did not google it right now), which will never get that improvement. They can be saved from being electronic waste with projects like postmarketOS.

Same here, but I realized that if pmOS becomes as big a deal as I think it will, then we shall all hear about it soon enough. Maybe not in time to save you a crap load of work, though. So it is still pretty good.